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137: 9-5 Employee of Google To CEO of GrooveAsia.cm With Simon Leung
Money & Me: Get anything you desire this year 5 Day Audio Program: https://www.soulrichwoman.com/money
The podcast features business leaders, celebrities and inspirational figures with guests including Gary Vaynerchuk, Sheryl Sandberg, Elena Cardone, Mary Buffett, Neil Patel, Kim Kiyosaki, Pia Wurtzbac, Gerry Roberts, Grant Cardone, Denise Duffield Thomas, Sue B Zimmerman, Jay Abraham, Robert Kiyosaki, Anik Singal, Blair Singer, Nas Daily, Dame Wendy Tan, Jacy Wee, Freda Liu, Carrie Lee, Success Resources Veronica Tan & Richard Tan and many more.
Hear more about amazing role models from around the world share their inspirational stories and practical tools for personal and professional success. In each episode, creator and host Genecia Alluora draws out the stories and deconstructs the strategies of remarkable figures making an impact. To Own & Love The F-Word: Being Fabulous, Having Freedom, Financial Independence and family.
Genecia Alluora is a former Miss Singapore, Cafe Retail Chain Owner and Southeast Asia Woman of Excellence 2010, 𝑰𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝑾𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏 2019. She is the Founder of Soul Rich Woman, the #1 female entrepreneur network in Southeast Asia that connects more than 200,000 women across the region in the ‘Soul F’ membership program. For the past 17 years, Genecia coached celebrities, CEOs and politicians to be seen as a leader on stage. Today, with the Soul Rich Woman Blueprint and online academy, she mentors hundreds of thousands of women to bring their business and leadership brand online. With her coaching products, academy and membership, her vision is to support 1 million women to own and love the F-Word.
[00:00:00]
Genecia Alluora: This episode is brought to you by InstantPodcastLeader.com, the leading platform to launch your podcast in 48 hours and make it profitable. Get your free audiobook and free web class at instantpodcastleader.com/webclass.
[00:00:19]
Simon Leung: Hi, I'm Simon Leung, CEO and co-founder of GrooveAsia.cm, and you are tuning in to the Soul Rich Woman Show with Genecia Alluora. Well, to me, a Soul Rich Woman is any woman who is strong enough to hold her own. Now, of course, it doesn't mean that you cannot have a man or somebody else in your life, but at the very least, you are self dependent and you know exactly what it is that you want. You are strong in terms of mentality. You have a career path. Maybe it's something else that you want to do. It could be a goal such as taking care of your family. It can be a housewife, but at least you know what it is that you really want. What's important to you? You know what your values are, and you will stop at nothing to make sure that you accomplish it. Taking care of loved ones is especially at the top of that list, but at the end of the day, it's all up to you and knowing exactly what makes you happy. And once you find that freedom to be able to achieve happiness, help others and just be yourself in your own skin, be comfortable and doing whatever it is that you want. I believe that is a true definition of a Soul Rich Woman.
[00:01:30]
Genecia Alluora: A strong and independent woman is something to behold. She pays her own bills, buys her own things, and she doesn't let a man affect her stability or self-confidence. She is a Soul Rich Woman. Are you ready to be rich, doing what you love? Be on purpose and in control of your life again. And For Women Who Love the F-word Podcast, we will be openly talking about getting more clients online, getting recognition as the leader and female entrepreneur, and also the F word. Being fabulous, having freedom and financial independence. It's time to own and love the F word. Welcome to the show.
[00:02:14]
Genecia Alluora: Hey gorgeous, welcome to the show! Today's episode we have Simon Leung, CEO and co-founder of GrooveAsia.cm and he is an amazing guy. You know, I've known him for many years now. I've seen him grown, I've seen him do so much stuff. And you know what? He has just recently expanded his brand and I want him to personally share with you his journey of how he became an entrepreneur and how he continued to build momentum in his businesses post-Covid. Simon Leung welcome to the show.
[00:02:51]
Simon Leung: Thank you so much, Genecia for having me.
[00:02:54]
Genecia Alluora: Yes, thank you for taking time. I really appreciate that. So would you like to share with us a little bit about your journey, how you got started and then moving into the momentum pieces?
[00:03:08]
Simon Leung: Sure, absolutely. Pleasure to be here of course. And of course, really a delight to be a part of everything Genecia is doing. Her community, her mission and everything is just all doing great stuff. And so for me, I think that plays a big part in terms of my relation with her. I feel like there's a lot of things that we have in common because growing up in the US, originally from Hong Kong, by the way, and I grew up in the US and of course had a lot of different struggles in terms of adapting into a culture. And you think that, you know, without getting too political or anything like that, if you think that things are bad right now. When I was growing up, there was a lot of things that I believe that I endured in terms of racism, in terms of bigotry, that really got me to be a lot stronger, to be able to continue my path towards achieving what I want to achieve.
[00:04:08]
Simon Leung: And so growing up, of course, going to school and attending college and university, I did a lot of things that normally college students wouldn't do. I took on 5 to 8 part time jobs at once, just so that I can put food on my table, and sometimes we wouldn't even eat. And so with all of that, I knew that it was going to be a struggle. My big break actually was during university, I came across then a very little known company called Google, and at that time it was just brand new. They were starting out and they were hiring for a brand new department in marketing. And of course I applied. I was very lucky as one of the temps who was hired and eventually transitioned into full time. Long story short, I spent about five years there, created their optimization team, built their agency team, and while on the inside had the pleasure, privilege, and opportunity to create their algorithm from start from scratch.
[00:05:09]
Simon Leung: And so with that, transitioned into a full time internet entrepreneur around 2006. You know, and because of my background at Google, it became a high in demand type of knowledge to this day. You know, a lot of people still want to learn about search engine optimization, about marketing, how to get organic traffic, and really especially things in regards to Google. And so what was really interesting is that for about the first decade and a half of becoming an internet entrepreneur, I really was very blessed to have the opportunity to travel around the world, to speak on seminar stages, share the knowledge and change lives from all walks of life. Because we have experience in terms of working with people who are as young as eight years old and as old as 80 years old plus, they became success stories, all because of the power of the internet. So of course, if you're thinking, well, in the last two years or so, right, things are completely different. We don't know what's going to happen. Right? We don't know what the situation is. Are we going to get locked down? Are we going to not have the opportunity to go out and work anymore?
[00:06:23]
Simon Leung: The good news is that, of course, if you have the power to watch all of us right now, if you're watching this show right now, you have the technology, you have what it takes, you have what you need to start your own business as well. So if you think that you know, you need to experience, you need to be able to be doing this for 20 plus years, just like you have, and all these different things that allow you to be able to do things strategically. Here is a shocker. Right? When March of 2020 came around, my business was in seminars. My other business was an agency. My other business was in venue rental, training room, rental properties and all those things that I'm sure you can imagine when that happened, took a major hit. So if you think about all the things that I was able to rebuild within the last year and a half to two years, actually, I had to start from scratch, just like almost everybody else, right? I took what I knew from the offline world, brought that online, and for a very long time. Right. We have no brand new business models, but we decided that once we come online, we wanted to share value, we wanted to build a brand new community. We wanted to make sure that whatever other people out there, whomever might be in similar situations in that transition phase, right, that you actually have the opportunity to do what you need to do next.
[00:08:00]
Simon Leung: And that's when Groove Asia was born, and I was talking to Genecia earlier, and we're talking about how within the next year or so, the next 12 months, we plan to actually create additional 10 to 12 different entities, companies, projects, all designed to help those who want to change their lives as well. So everything that we're doing, and I believe this more than many people out there, and I'm sure Genecia say you agree with me as well. The more people that we're able to help, the bigger community that we're able to build, the more lives that we change, the more that we're able to become happier ourselves and to achieve our own goals and results as well. So earlier we're talking about freedom. We're talking about changing lives and impacting the world. I believe that if there was ever a time for us to do that, now is that time, especially as we transition into I don't know what wave it is now. I don't know what, you know, Greek alphabet, we're that in terms of the pandemic. But, you know, the one thing that is for sure is that nothing's for sure. Is there going to be an end in sight in our current situation, nobody knows. The only thing that you can control is yourself, right? The only thing that you can do is to make sure that you continue to learn, continue to build, continue to improve. And together, I believe we can do just that.
[00:09:25]
Genecia Alluora: F word fabulous freedom, financial independence and happy family. Which F word means the most to you and why?
[00:09:33]
Simon Leung: Are those really the only options that I have? Because when it comes to F words, I'm sure that there are a lot. But when it comes to what I believe from the choices that were given to me, in fact, even if you didn't give me those choices, one thing that stands out to me is the word freedom. Why freedom? For me, I actually created my own brand, and I created an entire brand and representation from the word freedom. And in terms of achieving freedom, in terms of helping others achieve freedom, whatever the definition of freedom actually means to you. As we all know, financial independence, another one of the F words is one of them financial freedom, of course. But there's also time freedom. There's also personal freedom, lifestyle freedom. At the end of the day, what freedom means to you is exactly as you define it to be. It creates that happiness with your family. It creates how fabulous you are as well. So when it comes to freedom, I believe this is something that creates the entire atmosphere and maybe even the core of your being, as long as you know what drives you.
[00:10:47]
Simon Leung: Work together with your teams, with your community, with your partners to help each other, to achieve that level of freedom that you seek as well. And it is my personal goal, my personal objective as well, to help as many people as possible achieve their own freedom by changing lives around the world together. And so with that, I highly, highly encourage and support the strive of freedom. Because when it comes to freedom, that is going to make you happy, that it's going to define who you are. And yes, I believe along with Genecia and everyone in our community, freedom is what will change the world.
[00:11:30]
Genecia Alluora: And I noticed that you you must have took a lot of reflection and probably mindset shifts that need you to to kind of move all those offline pieces and understand that you need to move that value online and consistently being seen. And while kind of like branding yourself a new kind of like a new direction moving forward. So I'm really curious during that time of reflection and kind of adjusting. I mean, not many people can overcome that. I believe so, because, you know, it's easy to go with the path of least resistance. So how did you go through that journey of reflection and then rising up to move forward to where you are at right now?
[00:12:24]
Simon Leung: That's a great question. In fact, as you're asking the question, it is another opportunity, right, for me to reflect now, but this time on reflecting on my reflection. So with that, I think that a lot of it has to do with you. Right? And again, we don't want to get too political, but it really depends on you, your beliefs and the kind of person you want to be. For me, I've always been somebody who always wants to be the best version of myself. So that's the self reflection part, right? Do you want to be just like everybody else? Do you want to see and watch the news, realize how some of the people are behaving? And do you want to be just like them, or do you want to improve yourself? Now, obviously we're not in the position to judge anybody, right? We're all sinners. We all make mistakes. We all have our own beliefs and the way that we do things. But the one thing that I'm sure we can all agree on is that we can be better, right? As a society, we can do better in our disagreements, in our conflicts. If we don't necessarily agree with different ways that people are handling things, the decisions that are being made. Let's not get into the nitty gritty details, but I believe that for ourselves, we can choose to rise above as what you just mentioned, right, Genecia. And so with all of that. I know that at the core of each and every single one of our beings, regardless of why some people might decide to go out on the streets and protest and call people names and what may be perceived as spreading hate, right, or negativity. At the end of the day, we're all the same.
[00:14:14]
Simon Leung: We want the best for ourselves. We want the best for our family. We want the best for our kids and our future generations. And so with that, think about how you can achieve that. Think about whatever it is that you might be choosing to do at that point in time. The things that you say, the things that you do, how you interact with other people. Ask yourself if my parents are watching this, if kids are seeing me do this or say these things, right? The people who are closest to me, my loved ones, would they be proud? Would they be proud that I said this? Would they be proud that I did that? When you can honestly believe in what you do mean what you say and say what you mean, and you know deep down at the bottom of your core being that whatever it is that you're doing is the absolute best thing and the best decision that you can be making at that point in time with no regrets, right? Looking back and knowing that if I have to start all over and, you know, back in the day, we get these questions all the time. If you were to start over, what would you do? Right? And guess what? In early 2020, the year 2020, we all had the opportunity to do just that.
[00:15:40]
Simon Leung: And so a lot of what I had previously been saying is I wanted to make sure that I start off with the intention of helping as many people as possible with building communities from all walks of life in a variety of ways, where now I know I don't necessarily have to travel to Vietnam, or travel to Indonesia, or travel to Australia and New Zealand and everywhere else around the world in order for me to impact those lives right then and there in those places. I know that now we have the power to be able to do this online, just like what we're doing now from the comfort of our own home. So if you know that you have this power. What will you do with this power? As Spider-Man's Uncle Ben said, right. With great power also comes great responsibility. What will you do with that responsibility? How you will? How will you be responsible when you are able to reach the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands into the millions of people eventually? What can you do that small parts that you can do to contribute to making the world a better place for you, your family and future generations to come?
[00:17:02]
Simon Leung: At the end of the night, it's all about you, your beliefs, and what you know you can do. And if you don't think that you can do it yourself. Many people, right? They want to be a part of something bigger, be a part of movements, be a part of the community. And so with all of that, that's what I encourage you to do. Align yourselves with other people who may be seen as those who are in levels of influence, people who can make decisions, or maybe just somebody who is just like you and just with a very similar mindset and attitude, work together to come up with better plans and better ways to help one another. Because nowadays I'm sure you agree, right? It's not just about you, it's not about me. If we are good, if we can make everybody good, then everybody is also rewarded with that kind of, you know, quote unquote prize at the end of the day. So my goal is, of course, to help as many people as we can to build communities, to reach out, even if it's in the form of free technology, free education, free community. That's what we believe in right now more than ever, our society is in need of healing. We are in need of realizing what it is that is the most important that can change the world. And I believe once we're able to pinpoint that down and you are on board with that belief, you have a clear idea and vision what you want to do nothing and mean nothing will stop you from changing the world as well.
[00:18:39]
Genecia Alluora: Well, that's really great. In 2006, when you first became an internet entrepreneur, I mean, I only started in 2012 when I went online. You were like a generation or way earlier at that point in time. I mean, for everyone who is successful, they will always see your tip of the iceberg, your glamorous success, the brands build, the communities that you have. You have done, you have grown, right? Everyone sees our successes but never acknowledge the, I would say, the ups and downs that we've gone through. So in 2006, when you first started as an entrepreneur and you're like, there from the Google Times and, and and moving forward, what were some of the struggles, I would say key struggles that you faced and what do you do to overcome them?
[00:19:37]
Simon Leung: I think one of the biggest struggles, especially if you in the US grow up in as an Asian family, right? There's always that struggle of people around you saying, you know, don't do this. You know, stick with the path. Everybody, including my, my, my father, right? My, my cousins, my brothers, my family members, uncles, aunties, they call me crazy, right? For leaving a successful job at Google, I worked there for five years. When I left, I literally threw away six figures in salary and millions of dollars in in terms of stock options on the table just to pursue a dream. Right? And so with that, obviously it was a very big internal struggle. And so with that as well, I think what was the tipping point for me was I knew that if I remain somebody who is a corporate employee, yes, I'm living the great life. I have a dream job. Ultimately, though, I am very limited in terms of my growth and in terms of the number of people that we can reach as well as help out. I've always wanted to make a bigger impact. And so when I initially became an entrepreneur short, I had that leverage. I knew the backgrounds of internet marketing, I helped develop the Google system. And so with that blessing, I was able to immediately, financially. Within my first month in 2006 August, I was able to already exceed just in affiliate commissions my entire salary that I got at Google.
[00:21:24]
Simon Leung: In addition, that same year, within four months before the year ended, you know, half $1 million in business shortly into the second year. By February or March, it was really $1 million business. So I was very lucky. I was very fortunate in terms of the skill set that allowed me to be able to reach that level of success very quickly, but the struggle still became it became very real. Why? Because the more I was able to achieve, the more high in demand I actually was as a speaker, as a trainer, as somebody who wants to be, you know, requested to travel around the world. And at that point in time, and still am to this day, it's a personality trait that you cannot change. I was an introvert, a very big introvert. In fact, if you you know, if we hang out and we're, you know, something, we're going out, we're hanging out. There will be moments where I will say absolutely nothing and without realizing it, having that awkward silence. And that's completely normal and comfortable to me. And so with that. That's one of the biggest struggles, right? To fight through that, to make sure that when I'm on the stage and by the way, it did take me no less than 1 or 2 years before I was truly comfortable on the stage to be able to switch on and off like a, like a light switch, right? That personality to be able to present, to be able to entertain, to be able to be educational all at the same time. It takes a lot of work, right?
[00:22:53]
Simon Leung: Stepping outside your comfort zone and becoming almost a person that you are not, which we obviously highly discouraged. We want you to be who you are, but at the same time, if you're naturally an introvert, how can you be an introvert on the stage or even on the virtual stage when all eyes are on you, right? It would be very, very boring. And growing up, not just as an introvert, I actually had a lot of speech problems. In fact, now you still hear me stutter here and there. It's something that I never really overcame, but you are mindful of it and you fight through it because you know you need to deliver. So again, ultimately it's you, right? You need to set your goals. You need to know where you want to be, not just what skills you are having right now, not just what you're comfortable in doing right now, but as they say, successful people they make decisions for based on where they want to be and unsuccessful people, they base their situations or their decisions on what's happening around them right now. Right. Their current situations. And so what that's ask yourself, where do you want to be? Do you want to change lives? Do you want to be on the big stage, share the stage with the big names out there to impact thousands of people in the audience. Right?
[00:24:17]
Simon Leung: If that is what you want, ultimately, then don't think about, well, am I good at talking? I don't have that skill yet. I have stage fright. I'm afraid of what I would say. I'm not confident in my speech and my accent and my language or whatever else. Here's the thing. When I first moved to the US at five years old, obviously I did not speak a word of English and at very elementary level of Chinese. Right? I would probably say I was not confident with my Cantonese. I was not confident in my Mandarin even when I was in the US. And so before I even achieved that level of fluency, all of a sudden I was thrown into a world where it was a completely brand new and different language. Right? And so my friends, they laughed at me because I spoke English in a broken Chinese accent, and I spoke. I spoke Chinese in broken elementary kid accents as well. And so the teacher is really interesting because I'll never forget it. My teacher was standing up for me and they were saying, hey, you know, do not laugh at kids or other people who do not speak fluent English or have a different accent, because it just means that they speak different languages. It means that they have a different background.
[00:25:38]
Simon Leung: You should respect that. In fact, there's things that you can learn from them as well. So with that, it was my motivation as well to not only accept other people as they are, but with different demons and struggles that we all have ourselves. It was also my opportunity to prove myself, to be able to adapt. And so to this very day, right when I talk to many of my own students who say that they want to do live streams, they want to start sharing on webinars or creating YouTube videos, and they said that they're not confident in the way that they speak, because, you know, my English would not be understood by anybody else outside my own country. Right? My other languages also would not be understood other than my local members and, and people around me. And so with that, I say fight beyond that, right? Even if it's not trying to become somebody that you're not, even if it's not to adapt into a different language. It's not the accent. It's not how you speak. It's not even your confidence. It's your message. Right? It's your intention is what kind of value you ultimately intend and want to spread to the world, to those who needs to hear it. And when you have that in mind, and when you have that goal and you know that my intention is to change lives, then nothing is going to stop you in terms of your next steps to improve yourself. So I highly encourage that. If there's anything that is you feel is standing in your way right now, fight through it. Chances are we are our own biggest critics, right? And when you have that message and you want to share it with the people and ultimately, right, the value is there, ultimately that is the most important.
[00:27:30]
Genecia Alluora: Awesome. And now that you are embarking on this new chapter in your journey, tell us what are your big plans moving forward?
[00:27:39]
Simon Leung: Wow. Big plans. It's so hard to pinpoint down exactly what those plans are, because for the past several weeks, my partner and I have been planning for 2022, and right now I think we have no less than 12 brand new projects that we will be embarking upon. And so with that, I think the biggest thing that we want to do is knowing that in the last two years, of course, we completely changed the way that we did our business, and we completely changed the way that we saw the entrepreneurship world. But one thing that has never changed is our vision to be able to help other people, to educate them, to provide them with different opportunities. And so what we're very excited about is that in in the future, as we embark in these brand new, no less than a dozen brand new projects that we will be starting and launching, each and every single one of them is designed to be able to help a certain kind of people. So, for example, for those who want to start online businesses, right? Or those who want to become speakers, for those who want to change the world, for those who want to, you know, become much more respected in their industries. I would probably say there is something for everybody, but at the end of the night, what we are doing for every single one of them is a huge focus on community.
[00:29:02]
Simon Leung: I know that regardless of my passion, regardless of what it is that I want to do, as much of a reach that we have on the online world to be able to share our skill sets. Ultimately, I cannot do everything myself. And with that, I know that there's value in numbers. The cool thing about what we've been doing since we launched Groove Asia earlier this year, it feels like it's been years. It feels like we've been doing this forever, but it's only been launched since, you know, 2021. And so with all of that in the last several months of building this up, one thing that we focused on is community. And when we build a community, we have people obviously attracting those who are experts. For those who are starting out and brand new newbies, we are attracting those as well. And one thing that I really, really admired about the community is that everybody comes together to be able to love nothing except the kindness of their hearts, to personally reach out and make sure that everyone who is on the teams, every single one of the members within our community, everyone shares their goals, and everyone knows exactly what it is that they want to achieve in their lives. What is their objective for being a part of our community in the first place.
[00:30:32]
Simon Leung: And together we help one another. We say, hey, so you want to become a speaker? This is the direction that you want to go, right? You want to become a trainer. This is the direction that you want to go. You want to become a YouTuber. You want to do digital marketing, build your own list, help other people, build your own agency. Have your own e-commerce store, right? Do affiliate marketing. We have paths for everybody. And so as we proceed to move forward, we're going to leverage on our existing resources. We're going to leverage on the people that we've already built, turn them into mentors, turn them into trainers, turn them into speakers. So that together, like I said, I cannot do it myself, right. We're going to do this together. Our mission. When the Groove Asia is to achieve freedom by changing lives around the world together. So as a team, as a community, we will be working hand in hand. And of course, this is a direct or indirect invitation to anybody who wants to be a part of something bigger. You know that it's beyond you or me. It's beyond everything that we can fathom, and especially everything that's been going on in our lives, all the changes that's happened within the last two years. We know that nothing is for sure. We know the future is uncertain, but the one thing that can be for sure is that as long as you don't give up on your dreams, you don't give up on your goals and you don't give up on yourself, we will not give up on you. So with all of that, I encourage all of us to continue to not only chase after our own dreams, know what it is that we want, but also have the ambition to do this together. Because together, there's nowhere to go but up.
[00:32:20]
Genecia Alluora: So how can our audience reach you?
[00:32:23]
Simon Leung: Anyone who wants to reach out to me personally, you can find me on Facebook, you can find me on Twitter, you can find me on YouTube. But of course, the number one way, I believe, is just to be a part of our community. When you go to GrooveAsia.cm or when you to go to Simon Leung, you actually see an invitation for you to join our community. Sign up for free lifetime access to, you know, software as well as technology and education. A lot of things that you know, hopefully will be of value to you as well as your ambitions and what it is that you want to do ultimately just, you know, search me, you know, online, you will be able to find it. But I think the number one way, just so that you can be in touch with all of our community members, go to GrooveAsia.cm, sign up for your brand new free account, and you'll be immediately and instantly invited into our community as well.
[00:33:18]
Genecia Alluora: Wow, that's a lot of value, Simon. This is really amazing thing that you are doing right now. I believe that many of my listeners and the audience who's watching this right now will benefit greatly by joining your community. And for those of you tuning in today, if you enjoyed today's episode, I would like you to remember to subscribe to this show and remember to give us a glowing review of this podcast show. So thank you very much. I'll place all the links in the show notes and looking forward to speaking with you again in the next episode. I'm Genecia Alluora and Simon Leung we signing off right now. Bye.
[00:33:58]
Simon Leung: Bye.
[00:34:00]
Genecia Alluora: The key to unlock consistent success. The key to unlock the diamond within you. No other things involved. This is what you need to do and must do tonight. You can do it because I've done it. As long as you have a mentor who can take you from where you are now to where you want to be. You can shortcut your success. You can be different in order to make a difference. Turn your talent into your business. Turn your passion into a pay check by being you. By being new and only you. Give yourself a second chance. Never say no to your failures. As a woman, we have the power in our hands. Never let your fears hold you back. Quit thinking and start doing. Life is really short and keep pursuing what you truly ever wanted to achieve. Women come together alone. We are strong. Together we are unstoppable. The Soul Rich Woman Blueprint is going to be transforming your life today, yesterday, last year because you took action today, I'm going to say more power to you.